


Unexpected

by orphan_account, SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Kink Meme, Post-Series, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 02:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has become so used to hatred that his gentle, hesitant kindness destroys her.</p><p>It destroys her so thoroughly that she begins to trust him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Robb/Myrcella: She had conditioned herself to withstand the blows and the hatred with the pride of a Lannister but the hesitant kindness was something she had no armor against.
> 
> Prompter, I apologise if this wasn't at all what you wanted, but I've left room for a sequel if you want things to end differently :)

It begins as soon as she steps onto the streets of Sunspear, and only worsens as she nears the ship that will take her north to King's Landing and judgement.

The Martells are polite and courteous, but the warmth is gone from Trystane's dark eyes and Arianne's smile is brittle. It should hurt, that dismissal, the casual way in which they cast her aside the moment she is no longer useful to them, but Myrcella is a Lannister of Casterly Rock (she no longer even attempts to perpetrate that charade of having Baratheon blood) and she will not let the Dornish see her pain.

Instead, she calls up vague memories of her fearsome grandfather, of her beautiful mother, her glorious father – because she loved Jaime Lannister and is not ashamed to call him her father – and she strides through the streets of the castle town with her head held high, the brutal scar marring what should be her beauty bare for all to see.

They jeer her for it, that scar, almost as much as they jeer her blood and name and parentage. She spares a thought for sweet, brave Ser Arys Oakheart, who gave his life to save hers and who has been meanly rewarded for his sacrifice, his bones not even returned to Old Oaks until she literally begged Prince Doran on her knees.

She focuses on that when the first of the rotten fruit bursts at her feet, a tomato, focuses on the wrongs done to her here in Dorne as her mother once fostered her bitterness in King's Landing, and she is a true lioness as she walks through the storm of fruit and worse that she is pelted with without ducking her head, without faltering once.

She ignores Arianne's half-hearted words of farewell as she steps onto the gangplank and boards the ship. She ignores Trystane's upraised hand as she watches Sunspear disappear into the distance.

She ignores the cold sting of heavy iron manacles biting into her wrists and calmly sits in a shaded spot near the steps to the upper deck, combing the blood orange pulp and dog shit from her hair as best she can.

* * *

It worsens when she arrives at King's Landing. She has not been permitted to bathe or change her gown since her departure from Sunspear almost three weeks ago, and the fruit that clung to her hair and skirts has gone rancid, stinking to high heavens and staining her already filthy clothes. Her hair is a mess, a tangle of once-golden but now dirty knots around her shoulders.

She is offered no cloak, never mind furs, and she shivers against the jarring cold of the wind that whips through Flea Bottom and wraps itself around her as she emerges onto the docks. It looks to her as if the whole city has come to watch her final walk, she who left their city a girl princess and returned a shamed woman.

The first shouts are easily ignored, especially as the goldcloaks subdue the more outspoken members of the crowd. She is annoyed that the Queen and her Princes did not send an escort for her, but stamps down on the irritation and instead focuses on how thoroughly tired she is.

She knows that if she thinks of anything else, the anger will eat its way through her and she will weep.

It burns to walk through the gates of the Red Keep in shackles and rags, like a common criminal. A criminal by birth and blood she may be, but there is  _nothing_ common about Myrcella Lannister and she is sure that this is precisely why there was no escort, no honour about her journey and arrival, not even the tiniest modicum of respect shown to her by the restored Targaryens.

She does not even spare a glance for the heads she knows to be displayed above the gate, having no desire to see her parents' beautiful, matching faces tarred and ruined.

Barristan Selmy, a man who has known her all her life, who guarded her family since before she was born, cannot even look at her as she walks past him into the throne room. She is disgusted by him, refusing to let the hurt overpower her anger and keeping everything locked under a mask of austere coolness that would have made her grandfather proud.

Silence drapes itself over the assembled crowd when she walks into the throne room, her hands folded together as neatly as her shackles allow and her hair tucked behind her ear in an attempt at tidiness. She stands calmly at the foot of the throne, staring up at this strange new Queen, the woman they say is the most beautiful in all of Westeros.

Myrcella's mother was the most beautiful woman in Westeros before Tyrion killed her. Everyone says that Myrcella is her mother's image but for her scarring, and so she ignores the filth ingrained into her skin and defiantly watches the Queen watch her.

She forces herself to do no more than nod when Tommen is pushed in, stumbling because of his ankle chains. His shirt is stuck to his back with a combination of blood and sweat, and she realises dimly that he is slowly being flogged to death.

She does not hear the Dragon Queen's taunts, focusing instead on the deep shadows under her little brother's eyes, the vicious red marks curling up his neck and around his bare arms, the swelling of his cheeks and his mouth. He was always plump, her kitten, but now he is so thin that she thinks he might snap if a whip is brought down on his back even once more.

She turns away from the Targaryens, all three, and turns instead to Tyrion, standing not far away in his role as Hand of the Queen. She makes him the focus of her hatred, a hatred deeper and more violent than anything she has ever felt before, because he always loved them as they loved him and yet he is allowing his new masters to treat them like traitors.

She hears Daenerys Targaryen order one of her Dothraki to use his whip on Tommen and breaks from her reverie for long enough to leap away from her guards, to put herself between her brother and the leather, and although the pain that sears across her face, her already ruined cheek, is phenomenal, she makes no sound beyond a strangled moan and lifts her arms around Tommen to hold him close.

She ignores the blood that oozes from her new wound, the one that slants across her old scar, and holds Tommen as tight as she can. He is taller than her now, and he presses his face into her hair because he cannot lift his arms to hold her back.

Together, they are the last remnants of House Lannister – because Tyrion, the turncloak kinslaying traitor, does not count – and together they will stand tall and strong against those who so recently hailed them as King and Princes.

* * *

Myrcella is surprised when she is not to be executed, but she speaks her first words since her mother's execution when she learns that Tommen is to lose his head.

"Kill me or exile me, but do it before you kill him."

* * *

They choose to exile her, Tyrion and the Dragons, and Tyrion supplies her with a good horse, furs and a heavy purse of gold. She has heard that Addam Marbrand fled to the North after the treaty was signed, and she hopes that perhaps he will help her – he was Jaime's closest friend, after all, and as good a man as she believes can still exist in the world.

The journey north to the border is long and arduous and lonely. She is turned away from more inns than she cares to name, marked out by her scars and her hair and the rumours that precede her.

When eventually she reaches the border, she feels haggard. She has not had a decent meal in a week, has not bathed in longer, and she feels as though she should be ashamed of her appearance.

She looks the guardsmen squarely in the face and offers them the scroll Tyrion handed her on the Queen's behalf, her articles of exile, and after reading them carefully they permit her to enter Moat Cailin.

She will have to wait until word comes from Winterfell, though, before she is allowed any further.

* * *

Word from Winterfell comes in the form of a Lord Umber and an escort of a dozen men, who offer her a fresh horse and a hot meal. She accepts the food, refuses the horse, and rides north with them, hiding her hair and face under a deep hood to avoid detection as best she can.

They make no secret of their contempt, their disgust. Some of the younger men move to avoid touching her and her horse at all costs, and the older men – the one they call the Greatjon, others whose names she deems unimportant – eye her warily, distrusting her silence as thoroughly as they distrust her words. They call her bastard and freak, ugly and rotten, Lannister and slut, all as if the words have not lost all meaning to her by now, as if she is not immune to cruelty by now. She maintains an air of icy aloofness, fitting in the blizzards through which they ride, and thinks of her mother's smile, her father's laugh, the scent of Tommen's hair.

She is a Lannister of Casterly Rock, and she will not allow these Northmen to see her grieve.

* * *

Winterfell is half a ruin and half a barracks when they arrive, and Myrcella ruthlessly quashes the despair that rises up her gorge at the sight of two prowling direwolves and three Tully-looking Starks.

She thinks of her mother, her father, her brothers, her grandfather, of the family that she loved but who worked to destroy the family these three standing before her loved, and she wonders how long she will have before Robb Stark pushes her to her knees, puts her chin on a block and cleaves her head from her shoulders. The Black Prince had the Stark greatsword reforged from Jaime and Joffrey's swords, the swords that Tywin had ordered made from Ice, and she is sure that there is a sort of poeticism in the last true Lannister being executed by the same blade that murdered Ned Stark and started the war that ruined the Lannisters.

Myrcella has always despised poetry.

She is unsurprised that Sansa can hardly stand to look at her, unsurprised that Rickon openly stares at her scars, unsurprised that Roslin Frey-Stark regards her with wary hostility.

She is surprised by the wary blankness in Robb Stark's eyes, the same wary blankness she sees when she looks in the mirror, that she saw in Tommen's eyes.

He greets her as Lady Lannister, she greets him as Your Grace, and she is ushered inside by a maid and guided to a room wherein awaits a hot bath. She sinks into it gratefully, but is unsure what precisely is meant by it and by the gown that is laid out for her while she washes her hair.

Do the Starks want her to look her best for her execution in the same way the Targaryens dressed her mother in crimson silks, her father in his gilded armour, Tommen in his royal livery and his crown?

* * *

A week since her arrival at Winterfell and Myrcella thinks she might crack under the strain of it all.

Sansa still will not look at her, even when they are speaking to one another. Rickon has demanded all three stories of her scars – the official and true versions of her original injury, the whip in the throne room – and Queen Roslin refuses to speak to her.

Robb – he insists, for some reason, that she call him Robb and not Your Grace, and she is thankful for that because Your Grace will forever be Robert Baratheon and Daenerys Targaryen in her mind – is the only member of the family who speaks to her as a person, meeting her eyes and actually conversing with her. He enquires of her comfort, asks if there is anything she needs, offers empty comments on the weather (cold, snowing, sometimes sleeting, always cold) and generally treating her more as a person than anyone has since before the Targaryens took King's Landing and she became a prisoner in the Martells' hands, a bargaining chip to ensure their safety and prosperity in the event of Aegon's death.

She does not know how to react to it, to him, and finds herself answering with single words, murmurs and nods. She is uncomfortable with his scrutiny, and wonders how this bizarre kindness in any way precludes her death. It does not make sense.

* * *

When Addam Marbrand visits it becomes clear that the Starks have no intention of killing Myrcella, and she finds herself completely at a loss as to how she is supposed to behave in light of this new, startling information.

She spends a long, depressing morning with Addam, reminiscing about Jaime and Cersei, and that afternoon ventures to the godswood in search of peace and quiet. Instead, she finds the King in the North polishing his greatsword. There is something oddly hypnotic about the steady rhythm of soft cloth on steel, and she finds herself almost transfixed.

Without looking up, he asks her what troubles her.

She tells him.

* * *

She has become so used to hatred that his gentle, hesitant kindness destroys her.

It destroys her so thoroughly that she begins to trust him.

Myrcella learned long ago, before the man she thought was her father died, before she went south to Dorne, before her face was ruined, that it was dangerous, foolish even, to trust anyone who was not family. Her mother had always said "everyone who isn't us is the enemy," and Myrcella had taken every lesson Cersei gave to heart.

Laughing in the godswood with Robb Stark, ducking behind a tree as he tosses a snowball at her, she feels almost as if she is betraying her mother, her family, her House.

* * *

She asks him why he took her in as a guest, as a member of his household, when by rights he should have exiled her to the Free Cities, during one of their afternoons in the godswood, him polishing Ice and her stitching a new gown piece by piece, and he tells her that Tyrion and Jon, the Imp of the Rock and the Black Prince, asked it of him.

He stills for a moment, his full, expressive mouth twisted into something she thinks might be a long-past but still-painful wound, and he says that enough innocent blood was spilled during the war.

She thinks of his parents, her parents, his missing brother and sister, her dead brothers, and wonders if any Lannister but Tommen could count as an innocent.

She doubts it.

* * *

One day, while they are walking together through the trees, arm-in-arm against the biting cold, she asks him why he is so kind to her when he has no obligation – she points out that the Dragon Queen and the Silver Prince probably assumed that he would kill her as soon as he heard that she was on his lands.

He seems horrified by the notion and tells her that he would never execute someone because of the circumstances of their birth and the way in which they were used during their lives. So many people were killed when the Wall fell, by weights and White Walkers and war, and he is adamant that there are few enough offences for which he will raise his sword now. He explains to her the penalties that now stand for various crimes, and she finds herself interested in legal matters for the first time since hearing of her mother's trial.

* * *

Another day, she asks him why he spends his afternoons sitting in the cold with her while he could be inside in the warmth with his bannermen and his wife.

He avoids the question, points out that he does not spend  _every_ afternoon with her, but she persists and eventually he answers with a question.

"You're my friend, aren't you?"

* * *

During the feast to celebrate the birth of the heir to Winterfell, a boy named Eddard who is as Tully as his father and aunt and uncle, one of the younger lords becomes very drunk and forces Myrcella out of the hall in grand ceremony, carrying her over his shoulder and laughing at her protests.

He is met by his king, fire burning in those blue, blue eyes, and he leaves for the Wall the next day.

Myrcella does not think Robb sees it as he settles her on a nearby bench and crouches before her, inspecting the bruises on her neck and wrists with gentle hands, but his Queen watches them with hate in her dark eyes the whole time.

* * *

There is a feast to celebrate Sansa's bethroal to Willas Tyrell of Highgarden, and in the midst of the Lords of the Reach and the Northmen, Myrcella finds herself spinning about the floor in Robb's arms. He laments that his wife does not like to dance any more than she likes to ride out into the wolfswood or go for walks in the godswood.

Myrcella laughs as she points out that it is because he does these things with  _her_ that his wife hates her so. He denies that Queen Roslin hates her, but there is a teasing twist to his gleaming smile and so she laughs more and lets him twirl her about one-handed.

She knows – there is no room for doubt in her mind – that they are a strikingly beautiful couple, her scars aside, gold and russet and tall and elegant, and she wonders somewhere deep in her mind what it would be like to kiss Robb Stark, to twist her body around his, to press her skin to his.

She disengages as soon as is polite, leaving him smiling but bewildered as she flees to her room.

She is a Lannister and she will not stoop to taking another woman's husband, no matter how much she might want to.

* * *

It becomes increasingly clear that Roslin Frey – always a Frey, never a Stark – is disillusioned with her life as Queen in the North, with Winterfell and the North itself. Myrcella sometimes overhears the King and Queen arguing, and she always finds her way to the godswood after these arguments to comfort Robb.

He storms up and down before the weirwood, throwing his hands into the air as he tries to make sense of Roslin's grievances – their son is as Stark as Robb is, perhaps more so as the baby fat fades away from his cheeks and his face is longer than either of his parents', but the Queen will forever remain a Southron lady with no tolerance for the North.

Myrcella still finds the cold here nigh on unbearable, still is unsure how to behave with regards the laxer standards of courtesy the Northerners enjoy, still does not know if there may come a day when some little thing will come to light and Ice will slice through her neck. Frankly, she thinks that Roslin Frey has an infinitely easier time at Winterfell, never having to worry about the families of those harmed or broken or killed by House Lannister seeking retribution, guarded and cossetted and cherished as the Queen in the North, the Prince's mother, and yet all she does is complain. Myrcella thinks that she should consider herself lucky, the luckiest woman in all of Westeros, because she has a husband who treats her with kindness and gentleness, which is more than many women could hope for, and a crown to wear in her glossy hair.

Myrcella refuses to entertain the notion that she has so little tolerance for Roslin's problems because she shares a bed with Robb, because the ungrateful little harpy does not seem to understand just how wonderful her husband is beyond his crown. Myrcella may have been stripped of everything else, but she still has her pride.

She lets Robb vent his frustrations, and is always surprised when he apologises for taking up her time, for speaking out of turn, but she merely smiles and assures him that even kings need confidants, and she is always willing to offer her services as such.

* * *

The first time they kiss – neither is sure who moves first – it is rushed and sloppy and Myrcella runs away as fast as her skirts and the snow on the ground will allow, her face burning with shame. She is a Lannister, exile or no, and she should have more pride than to take the leavings of another woman.

She cannot deny the heat that lingers in her lips for hours after, no more than she could deny that he haunts her dreams even more than normal from that night forward.

* * *

She drinks herself into a state of stupendous inebriation on the anniversary of Cersei and Jaime's deaths, sitting with the Smalljon and a handful of Robb's other companions, all of whom are attempting to drink her under the table.

She is, regrettably, Tyrion Lannister's niece, and her tolerance for alcohol is disproportionate to her weight.

Robb finds her long after the others have left, slumped over the table and still sipping at a half-empty cup of wine. This time, it is definitely her that kisses him, but it is he who twines his fingers into her hair, who pushes his tongue past her lips and pulls her roughly into his lap, who slides a hand up her thigh, under her skirts, his hand warm on her bare skin just below her smallclothes.

His tongue presses hot and wet against the column of her throat, and she moans so softly that it might have gone unheard if it weren't for the echo in the hall. The sound seems to ignite some fire in his blood, and she can practically feel him swelling under her as he pulls her down hard against him.

She knows that this is a mistake. She knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that the sensible thing to do would be to pull away, possibly to slap Robb Stark right across that damned handsome face of his, and walk off with her head held high.

She attempts to do just that, but stumbles as soon as she gets to her feet and manages only to slap his shoulder. The heat dissipates between them, and suddenly they are laughing. He helps her to her rooms and bids her goodnight, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand before departing.

When she wakes the following morning, her head aches and she wants to die to avoid the embarrassment of having to face Robb.

* * *

They are more careful after that, because there is something between them now that was not there before.

Myrcella does not go to the godswood every day now, and Robb spends more time with little Eddard. Rickon begins asking her to go riding with him, and innocently informs her that Robb suggested it.

She is even more unsure of her place in Winterfell now, now that she is not sure if she is even the King's friend as she was before she made such a fool of herself. She begins to close herself off again, reverting to the careful mask of cool aloofness that she copies from her memories of her grandfather.

She hears the whispers now that she spends more time in the castle during the day, the vicious little rumours that wonder if she seduced the Young Wolf into her bed, Lannister whore that she is. She wonders what the petty little fools who cluster around the Queen and glare across the room at her would say if they knew that she has tasted Robb's tongue, has felt his body react to hers.

She has not danced with Robb, has not sat near him at dinner or allowed herself to be alone in a room with him since that night. She misses his company but refuses to allow herself to be lowered to the position of King's mistress, no matter how appealing the position might be to some part of her mind (that part being the one that controls her libido).

She will not risk succumbing to her desire for him, will not shame herself any further in the eyes of these idiotic women. She is a Lannister of Casterly Rock – Tyrion has written several times, offering to name her his heir if she will only speak to him, but how can she when he allowed Aegon Targaryen to slice through Tommen's neck? – and she is of better, nobler blood than any woman in Winterfell now that Sansa has left for Highgarden. She will not be cowed by the daughters of lesser Houses and upstart lords like Walder Frey of the Crossing – queen or no, Roslin is intolerably discourteous, and it is with this in mind that Myrcella finally gives in and retreats to the godswood in the snow.

Robb is there with Eddard and Grey Wind, telling his son about the heart tree while his direwolf skulks about in the background. Myrcella hides behind a tree, watching father and son staring intently at the queer face carved into the bark, but Grey Wind sniffs her out and forces her forward.

There is an awkward moment where neither of them is sure how to behave, but Eddard proves a welcome boon – he is a cheerful child, toddling about in the snow and tossing handfuls of it into the air, laughing and babbling incoherently.

Robb apologises for dishonouring her, and she laughs bitterly – she is no maid, thanks to Trystane's guilty conscience and his desire to give her one last good memory before she sailed to what they all assumed would be her death at King's Landing – before sitting down beside him on the log. They say nothing for a long moment, choosing instead to watch Grey Wind herd Eddard away from the hot pools.

"You may tell your wife that I have no intention of taking you into my bed."

"No intention? Does that equate to no interest?"

"Come now, Your Grace – you know that it is rude to ask a lady such questions."

* * *

She writes to Tyrion to point out that she cannot be his heir because she is an exile. She does not add that the thought of leaving Winterfell makes her sick, turning her stomach almost as thoroughly as the thought of living at the Rock with all her ghosts does.

* * *

It happens only once.

She curses herself afterwards, drowning in a strange mixture of heady ecstasy, burning shame and utter despair, because she knows that once will never be enough as surely as she knows that never again can she lie with Robb Stark.

It is the night of a great feast, this one to celebrate the announcement of the Queen's second pregnancy, and Myrcella is unsurprised to see Robb bursting with perfect joy. He is the most beautiful thing Myrcella has seen since she left King's Landing for Sunspear, saying goodbye to her mother, her beautiful, broken mother, for what turned out to be the last time, since she last saw Tommen smile and Jaime laugh and her own face unmarked by scars.

The pain of this realisation leaves her breathless, and she escapes to the godswood with a skin of wine in her hand and a fur to wrap around her shoulders. She drinks herself into a stupor, sobbing for her family, and eventually she falls asleep at the foot of the heart tree, curled up as the snow falls softly around her.

He finds her like that in the small hours of the morning and wakes her roughly, shaking her shoulders and swearing under his breath as he gathers her into his arms, thanking the gods that she wrapped up so well against the cold. She shivers the whole way back to her rooms and when she kisses him, digging her icy fingers into his hair and pushing her tongue fiercely past his warm, soft lips, he tastes of ale and life and whatever goodness is left in her world.

His hands are hot on her skin, warming her right down to her core, his tongue and lips tracing wildfire against her body, and when she falls apart he holds her together, his arms strong around her and his moans shuddering across her neck.

But he is gone when she wakes up in the morning, even though the smell of him lingers on her bed linens and furs, and she knows instantly that she cannot do this to herself.

She is too proud to ever settle for anything less than all of someone, and for that reason she must leave.

She knows that she is lying to herself when she denies that she would willingly share a bed with Robb again, just to have some little bit of him, and that frightens her so much that she writes to Addam Marbrand at White Harbour with a request.

* * *

Word spreads quickly through Winterfell that the Lannister girl is leaving, and Robb explodes into her room while she is packing her trunk.

He looks at her for a long while, hurt rich in his shockingly blue eyes, and then he is kissing her, desperation leaking through his lips, dripping from his tongue.

She pulls away gently, holds his face in her hands and shakes her head, trying her best to fight back tears but failing miserably.

He holds her close and says things that he should say to none but his Queen, pleads with her to stay, that he will do whatever is necessary to hold her here-

She presses a finger to his lips and shakes her head once more before firmly pushing him from the room and barring to door to him.

If her hands tremble and tears drip onto her things as she resumes packing, she ignores it and carries on resolutely. She will not second-guess her decision.

* * *

She leaves with less ceremony than she arrived with, only Addam, newly arrived from White Harbour, as an escort. Robb and Rickon take their leave of her in the yard. She feels a momentary jolt of guilt for leaving Rickon, he who has seen everyone leave, but feels reassured by the knowledge that Bran will soon be returning from Castle Black, where he is overseeing the rebuilding of the Wall with Lady Melisandre.

Robb's eyes are guarded, but he holds her too tight and too long before helping her up onto her horse, and she wonders for one moment of glorious madness what it would be like to leap down into his arms and kiss him without a care for who would see.

Instead she murmurs polite farewells to the King in the North and his brother, and she rides out beside her natural father's friend.

* * *

They are on the ship to Braavos when she asks Addam if he will claim her child as his, and he assures her that he was already planning on doing so.

* * *

She hesitates when the midwife asks her what she will call her son, her perfect little baby with a tuft of hair that will prove to be neither blonde nor red when it is cleaned, with eyes that will never shift from their bright, clear blue, but Addam says that the baby will be called Jaime, his face proud but his eyes apologetic when they meet hers.

He apologises to her, but says that it invites disaster to consider naming the child for his father.

* * *

Jaime Marbrand is nine years old and learning to fight with a sword when a raven comes from King's Landing which makes his mother weep. The infamous Daenerys Targaryen is dead, her nephew Aegon, the sixth of his name, has ascended to the throne and Jaime's parents are no longer forbidden to return to the Six Kingdoms on pain of death.

Mother weeps, clutching the letter to her heart with one hand and covering her eyes with the other. Father sits down heavily right on the ground, staring blankly at nothing.

Jaime carefully hugs Mother and tells her that it will be alright, that perhaps she and Father can show him all the places that they told him about now, and won't that be an adventure?

Mother wraps her arms around him and kisses his hair and tells him that yes, yes, it will be the greatest adventure of his life, and even though she smiles her eyes are terrified when she looks at father.

* * *

King's Landing is not as big as Jaime expected, but Mother and Father guard him as though they think someone will steal him away from them. Father's hand rests permanently on the pommel of his sword and Mother's jaw is tight, her scars violently pink against her pale cheeks.

Mother told him that her uncle, the King's Hand, has invited them to stay with him, and so they must go to the Red Keep, but along the way someone recognises her and shouts of "Lannister whore!" and "Kingslayer's bastard" and "whore's get" follow them up the streets.

Father tenses at every new insult, but Mother stands straight and tall, and Jaime thinks that she is very beautiful.

There is a man in gleaming white armour at the door of the great castle, and Mother strides past him with her head held high, more noble in her simple gown with her hair spilling loose down her back than any of the women in silks and braids.

The King greets her graciously, and the ugly little man who Mother greets as Uncle ushers her and Father and Jaime away, to a tower.

Before they arrive, a horn sounds from the gates and Uncle laughs, saying that it has been a long while since King Stark and his entourage visited the Red Keep.

Mother and Father look at each other with wide, frightened eyes, but Jaime is excited to meet the man that everyone calls the Wolf King.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrcella and Addam return to court with Jaime, and their visit coincindes with that of the King in the North.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unexpected (ahaha) sequel chapter. Um. Enjoy, I suppose?

Roslin Stark, Queen in the North, had not been in King's Landing in over five years, not since then-Prince Aegon had married Jennelyne Fowler of Prince's Pass. She had finally gotten to know her husband's brother – his cousin in blood, but his brother in bond, that was – during that visit, and had liked him immensely. Jon Targaryen was, according to Sansa, very like the goodfather Roslin had never had a chance to know.

She was looking forward to seeing Sansa again – it had been over a year since she had made the long journey to Highgarden with the boys to visit her goodsister, and she had missed Sansa's gentle, easy company.

Sansa had been her most steadfast friend during that difficult first year at Winterfell, before Edd's birth. Roslin had wept bitterly the morning Sansa had left for Highgarden, because thankful though she had been for the Manderly sisters and the Mormonts, without the buffer of Sansa between them it had been difficult for her to manage the more straightforward, simple Northern manners. She had been so used to minding her every word, to the rigid but unspoken hierarchy that was observed at the Twins, where age came before just about anything else, that it had been jarring to come to Winterfell, where her authority was acknowledged but ignored unless she was sitting in the hall as Robb's Queen.

Up until Callan's birth, Roslin had found it difficult to reconcile the burgeoning feelings she'd discovered for Robb with the fact that he had been carrying on an affair for almost their entire marriage at that stage, but Myrcella Lannister had left Winterfell not long before Callan was born and Robb had… Not changed, exactly, but focused.

Life in Winterfell had become easier when her husband was not making a fool of himself with the Kingslayer's last remaining bastard.

Jon greeted them at the gate, embracing Robb tightly as soon as he slid down off his horse before turning his attention to her.

"Roslin," he said, smiling warmly. "It is good to see you."

"And you," she assured him, rising up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Val is still abed?"

"And still refusing to name our sons before they are two years old," he complained, lifting first Edd up into a hug and then Callan and Hoster. "The small council thinks that the Black Prince and his wildling princess behave as they do just to cause consternation."

Robb laughed and bent to scoop the second of his nephews, Aemon, who followed Jon everywhere, onto his shoulders.

"That is part of it," he teased, nudging Jon's arm.

Jon grinned and gestured for them to follow him inside.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "But you must not tell my brother that."

* * *

"I would like to name your son as my heir."

Myrcella choked on her wine, coughing and spluttering in shock at Tyrion's casual words. It was one thing speaking to her uncle without wanting to gouge his eyes out for what he had watched done to Tommen, but this-

"As you can see, I have not married since my marriage to Lady Tyrell was annulled when she was still Sansa Stark, and I have no children of my own. Aside from his remarkable eyes, Jaime could be my brother returned to me less the annoying growth that was your mother."

Jaime – her Jaime – had eyes so blue that Myrcella could hardly bear to meet them. Aside from that, Tyrion was right – he had the same nose and jaw and mouth as the original Jaime, the same infectious smile. He was just as quick to anger and to forgive as her father had been, just as delighted by everything beautiful in the world as Tyrion recounted his brother being before he became the Kingslayer.

"I think him very like Tommen."

And it was true – Jaime was so like Tommen that it ached every time he laughed or brought home a stray cat or smiled or presented her with a bundle of hard-found flowers.

"Beneath Tommen's baby fat, he was more like Jaime than you are like your mother."

Tyrion never referred to Cersei by name. Myrcella never referred to her as "Mother." It was easier for both of them that way.

"Why, though?" she asked quietly, watching Addam and Jaime tumble in the gardens from her perch on the terrace at Tyrion's side. She could not remember ever being in the old Tower of the Hand, the one her Cersei had burned in Tywin's memory. "Why now?"

"Your husband has no lands, no inheritance to give your son," Tyrion said with a shrug. "And he is so clearly Robb Stark's son that even if Addam were restored to Ashemark, none would accept Jaime as a Marbrand."

"I-"

"There is no need to deny it, and I will not judge you," Tyrion assured her, resting a placating hand on her arm. "He is pure Lannister save for his eyes to everyone who did not know Jaime outside of the legend of the Kingslayer, who cannot see what I see in him. Unless you knew both Lannisters and Marbrands, you would never suspect a thing – but I do, and more importantly, I know  _you,_ my dear."

"He will have to take your name, won't he? He'll be Jaime Lannister."

"Of course – the heir to Casterly Rock can be nothing but a Lannister, after all."

"Addam will not like that."

"Addam will like that his son will one day be Lord of the Westerlands and Warden of the West," Tyrion corrected. "You must not think as a mother, Myrcella, but as a lady of court – what better security is there for Jaime than having him named my heir? You and Addam may bring him to the Rock and raise him there in peace – there will be no fear of him meeting his natural father."

"That same natural father who arrived only yesterday afternoon, you mean?"

Tyrion smiled just slightly and shook his head.

"Robb Stark is a sensible man as far as I know, and more importantly, he is a king – he will not do anything to risk his precious North."

"Fathering bastards never harmed a king before-"

"No king ever fathered a bastard on the daughter of one of the most reviled men in history," he said gently. "Unless he is a far stupider man than I think, he will make no move to claim Jaime or rekindle whatever relationship you had while you were at Winterfell."

She flushed, mortified. She knew the calibre of rumour court was capable of spinning, especially for someone who must be reviled as she was.

"Everyone thinks I seduced him, don't they? That I took him into my bed almost as soon as I arrived at Winterfell?"

"It has been said – but I did not believe it. You are more your father than your mother, after all."

"I lay with him just once," she admitted. "And I left Winterfell as soon as possible afterwards. I… I did not want to be a king's mistress."

Tyrion's eyes were bright with what she thought might be pride.

"Perhaps not so much of your father as I thought."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, what was Jaime if not your mother's mistress?"

Surprising herself, Myrcella laughed.

* * *

Addam had feared that when given the choice of separate chambers, Myrcella would no longer wish to share his bed. She'd surprised him, though, as she so often did, and slipped into his room once she'd put Jaime to bed.

He had not intended taking her as his true wife when he'd agreed to journey to Braavos with her before Jaime was born – he had been more than willing to claim Robb Stark's bastard as his own to preserve whatever shred of honour Westeros still believed to be Myrcella's, and that had been his only motivation in taking her to the nearest sept when they landed in Braavos and throwing a Marbrand cloak – his only cloak, then, not a marriage cloak at all but the best they had – around her shoulders.

But nine years was a long time to be lonely – even though he had never intended bedding her, he had remained as chaste and faithful to his vows as she had, channelling his energies into his work teaching young bravos to fight in the Westerosi style and into Jaime – and eventually, they had come together.

Their son – because he was Addam's son, and he'd kill any man who said otherwise – was a joy for them both, sweet and clever and loving, but he had taken after his grandfather in his reckless, heedless disregard for his own safety and for Myrcella's nerves. Addam could remember many an afternoon spent chasing the first Jaime around Crakehall, desperately trying to prevent his friend from endangering himself any more than absolutely necessary. They both adored their Jaime, but he left them completely and utterly exhausted.

It was after one of his wilder adventures – taking him along the harbour almost as far as the Sealord's Palace, and him only six years old and with a wicked tongue, too, which had left him with a mass of bruises and a broken arm after a gang of older boys set on him – that Addam and Myrcella consummated their marriage in a mess of panic and relief and tears. He had felt unbearably guilty afterwards, ashamed to have taken advantage of her like that, the only woman aside from Cersei that Jaime Lannister, the infamous Kingslayer, had ever loved, the woman who was barely a woman (or at least, she had seemed that way to him despite being almost twenty-three by then).

But then she had leaned over his shoulder, her skin against his, and put her lips to his ear.

_"I do not want to be lonely anymore, Addam."_

That had settled it between them – Jaime's birth had been so difficult as to leave her unable to bear any more children, so they had lavished every morsel of love and affection they had on him and they had carried on as a happy little family for three more years until the letter had come from King's Landing, announcing Daenerys Targaryen's death and the pardons Aegon was offering them, and thrown them from their course.

It was, of course, Jaime that they spoke of when Myrcella curled herself against his side in the bed in the Tower of the Hand, a bed twice or thrice as big as the bed they'd shared in Braavos and overflowing with soft coverlets and fluffy pillows.

"He might be one of the most powerful men in the Seven Kingdoms," Addam murmured, stroking her hair. "That is more than I could ever hope to offer him, even if I were restored to Lord of Ashemark."

"Casterly Rock never brought my family any happiness," Myrcella argued, her fingers tapping against his collarbones. "He has been happy with us, Addam – why did we ever leave Braavos?"

"Because we wanted to come home, Myrcella. We wanted him to know the best life he could have-"

"What was wrong with his life in Braavos?" she demanded, sitting up and folding her arms under her breasts. "Tell me that, husband – what part of our son's life will be better here in Westeros?"

"He will have friends his own age, for one," Addam pointed out, sitting up with her. "He will have something to occupy his mind, something other than watching me train fools who can't wield a proper sword to fight to do during the day, the safety of castle walls while he sleeps at night. A better name than mine, too, and the esteem of being a Lannister of Casterly Rock – they would not sniff at that anywhere, even in the Free Cities."

"They laughed at me for it," Myrcella groused. "How funny for them, to have the last Lannister save the Imp taking in their sewing and mending their gowns. Ha ha ha."

"Myrcella-"

"All our names and titles and sigils – they mean nothing, Addam, not really. Castle walls may fall just as cities may burn. Jaime has always loved watching you teach, and he had plenty to occupy his mind at his studies – I spent enough bloody coin on his books, didn't I? As for friends his own age…"

She bit her lip and looked down at the mattress, at the deep crimson of the sheets.

"The heir to Winterfell is only a year or so older than him, and the second Stark boy is almost exactly of an age with him. There's a Tyrell boy his age, too. They all have Tully eyes, Addam – Tyrion warned me of it today. Damn it all, there's a  _Tully_ boy his age! We can't… I can't-"

"I will kill any man who says that Jaime is not my son," Addam insisted, tugging her arms loose and taking her hands. "I swear it to you now, Myrcella, I'll run them through."

She smiled bitterly and shook her head.

"Then the Red Keep will run with the blood of many, love – Tyrion admitted that most think I was Robb's mistress while I was at Winterfell."

* * *

"Myrcella? Lady Marbrand, I mean?"

She turned away from the window and felt her eyes widen.

"Surely this cannot be little Rickon Stark?" she teased, stepping forward and holding out her hands in greeting. "It is good to see you, my friend. How have you fared these past years?"

"Nine years," Rickon emphasised, smiling shyly and pressing a kiss to the back of each of her hands. "I have fared well enough – I am married now. You must dine with us tonight, Myrcella, and meet Dara. You'll love her, I know it."

"I'm sure I will, if she could tame the wild wolf of Winterfell. You have grown so tall, Rickon – I almost did not recognise you."

"You took me for Robb for a moment, you mean," he corrected softly. "Did he make you leave, Myrcella? I thought you were happy at Winterfell."

She felt her breath catch in her throat – Robb  _had_ done something to make her leave, she supposed, but she could not tell Rickon that. As far as she remembered – and she remembered everything about her time at Winterfell – Rickon hero-worshipped his older brother just as she and Tommen had worshipped Jaime and Renly. She could not shatter his illusions.

"No, Rickon, Robb did nothing – I chose to leave. Westeros is full of ghosts for me, more even than linger here for you."

"But you came back."

"I missed home," she admitted. "And I wished for Jaime to meet what kin Addam and I still have – have you met him? My son?"

"He's playing in the gardens with Robb's sons," Rickon confided with a smile. "He's very like you, Myrcella."

She pushed aside a wave of horror at the thought of Jaime playing with his half-brothers and forced a smile. She must not give anyone reason to believe that there was a problem with Jaime playing with Starks and Tyrells and Tullys.

"You think so? I think him very like my brother, Tommen – do you remember Tommen? You would have met him when we visited Winterfell, to… To bring your father south." She hesitated a moment and rallied admirably. "Everyone always did say that Tommen and I might have been twins, before I was injured."

Rickon watched her for a long moment, looking down at her from his genuinely remarkable height – he was taller than Robb and broader, too, and there was something of the Starks in his face even though he had the Tully eyes and hair and cheekbones – and then smiled.

"Come to my rooms tonight for dinner," he insisted. "Bring your husband and your son – I'll make sure we have honey milk for you."

* * *

Robb left Roslin and the boys in the Keep with Val and her and Jon's sons and rode out into the kingswood with his brother.

"You haven't heard about the Imp's heir, have you?" Jon asked when they were deep among the trees. "The Keep's overflowing with rumours about him."

"Tyrion has named an heir?" Robb said, surprised. "It's about time – who is he? Some cousin or other no doubt?"

"A grandnephew, actually. Myrcella's son."

Robb fought to keep a blush from rising in his cheeks – Jon was one of only two people who knew explicit details of Robb's relationship with Myrcella, who knew how he felt about the one-time Princess of the Iron Throne.

"I'm sure he is a fine boy – Addam Marbrand is his father, isn't he?"

"He's Myrcella's husband. You are the boy's father, you fool. He has the Tully eyes."

* * *

Dinner with Rickon and Eddara – Dara – Stark had been thoroughly enjoyable. Myrcella had seen the way Rickon had quietly studied Jaime's eyes and said nothing, trusting her friend (because Rickon truly did seem happy to see her) not to say a word on the subject.

Addam had been pleasantly surprised by both Rickon and Dara, and Jaime was utterly enamoured with them. Myrcella had been sad in the most bizarrely happy way to see Rickon and Jaime sitting across from one another, chatting and laughing over the table. She'd often wondered what Tommen would have thought of her son, and she knew Addam wondered the same about his brothers, dead in the war, and it ached so sweetly to see Jaime with one of his uncles.

Rickon hugged her tightly before bidding her and Addam and Jaime goodnight, though, and whispered "It was your only choice," in her ear before releasing her, and it was all she could do not to cry with gratitude that wild little Rickon trusted that she had done the right thing to preserve her son and his safety.

* * *

"Why are you small, Uncle?"

Myrcella bit her lip as she watched Jaime and Tyrion eating lunch together the following day, a platter of fruit balanced precariously on a tiny space of tabletop among dozens of priceless books.

"I am a dwarf, my boy," Tyrion said lightly, sipping his wine and gesturing to Jaime with his cup. "You have your grandfather's height, you lucky thing. You will be just as tall and twice as handsome as he was."

"Father says that I will be better with a sword, but I don't think Mother likes to see me with a sword."

It was true, Myrcella had to admit – the idea of having another Ser Jaime, even if his name was Marbrand and not Lannister, had always left her stomach in knots.

His name would be Lannister now, she realised, and the thought was enough to make her sick because all she could see was Obara Sand's gleeful face as she delivered the news of Jaime, the first Jaime, the Kingslayer, of his fate at the hands of the Dragon Queen, of what he had been forced to do to Cersei-

She ducked away from the door, barely making it to the privy before she threw up.

The sooner she and Jaime and Addam were on their way to Casterly Rock, the better.

* * *

"Have you seen the new heir to Casterly Rock?" Roslin dared ask over dinner, the first time she had been alone with Robb except in bed since their arrival a week ago. "He is a very handsome boy."

A very handsome boy with Tully eyes in a Lannister face, Roslin did not say, but she knew Robb more than well enough to recognise the flush in his neck for the shameful acknowledgment that it was.

"He was playing with Edd and Callan today," he said quietly. "He… Roslin, I did not know-"

"Is that supposed to erase the shame of what you did?" she demanded. "Is that supposed to make it better, to excuse you for lying with the Kingslayer's bastard and getting a bastard on her? Is it, Robb?!"

"I only lay with her once," he said, still quiet, still calm. "Just once, Roslin, I swear to you – I did not-"

"Her son is not much younger than Callan," Roslin said icily. "And she left not two moons after we announced I was with child – when did you lie with her, husband? When did the honourable King in the North bend his honour to lie with a whore?"

"The night- the night we announced that you were with child," he admitted. "I went to the godswood to pray for a safe pregnancy for you, and I found Myrcella there. She was half-frozen – I think she'd left during the feast and fallen asleep, and it was so late that I thought it easier just to carry her back to her chambers myself rather than sending for someone else to do it – Roslin, I did not mean to do it. You must believe me. I did not mean to break my marriage vows."

"But you did!" she snapped, hurt and bewildered by how  _deep_ the hurt went – had she not known that Robb had been unfaithful with Myrcella Lannister? She had, and yet this confirmation was like a kick in the gut. It  _ached._ "You did, Robb, you  _did-"_

He slid to his knees at her feet, taking her hands and laying his head in her lap.

"I will never be able to make right on my wrong," he said, fervent and intent and fierce, "but please, Roslin, please, for our sons' sakes if not for mine, please forgive me. I could not bear for you to hate me."

* * *

"We must leave sooner than next month, Tyrion! He was- he was  _watching_ Jaime this morning, and I cannot seem to keep Jaime away from all the Starks and Tullys and Tyrells!"

Tyrion took Myrcella's hands in his, touched her cheek – her scarred cheek – in comfort, and sighed.

"I can have the arrangements finalised by next week," he conceded. "I had hoped to spend more time with you, sweetling, but I understand why you might desire to leave sooner. It will be done."

She sagged in relief, throwing herself at him in thanks.

"I can't bear to be this close to him, Uncle," she admitted in a whisper. "I can't stand it, Tyrion, I can't, I can't be here with him so near-"

* * *

Myrcella successfully avoided Robb right up until the night before she and Jaime and Addam were due to leave King's Landing, but she quite literally ran into him coming around a corner while chasing Jaime and wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.

"Your Grace," she said, scrambling to her feet and dropping into a curtsy as he righted himself and adjusted his clothes with exaggerated care – surely he couldn't be as uncomfortable about this as she was?

"Lady Lannister," he said softly, bowing just enough to not seem over-familiar.

"It is Marbrand," she said stiffly. "Your Grace. My name is Marbrand. If you'll excuse me, sire-"

"Myrcella," he said, catching her wrist. "Do not turn away from me. Do you truly hate me so much as that?"

She kept her eyes resolutely away from his – it was enough of a torture that they were copied so exactly in Jaime's face without her having to actually look at Robb.

"I do not hate you, Your Grace," she said, proud at having kept a tremor from her voice. "I have no reason to – you were nothing but kind to me while I was your guest at Winterfell. If you'll excuse me, I must find my son – his father and I are bringing him to Casterly Rock in the morning. He must needs train as my uncle's heir, after all."

The emphasis she placed on  _his father_ did not go unnoticed, not if the way Robb released her wrist as if she was burning him was any indication.

"I apologise for keeping you then, my lady," he said stiffly. "Please, be on your way."

She dipped one last curtsy, staring hard at his boots, and half-ran away, only to turn when he called her, and-

Oh, his eyes, his lovely eyes, there was so much  _pain_  there-

"Myrcella," he begged. "My wife hates me already. Please, do not hate me also. Please."

She tried to speak, truly she did, but she choked on a sob and spun on her heel and ran away like the coward she had become since his damnable kindness had unhinged her.

* * *

She found Jaime curled up with a book, and as she herded him back to their rooms in Tyrion's Tower, all she could think was that her mother would be ashamed of her. They all would – Mother, Jaime, Grandfather, Tommen. She had let them all down so terribly, and she could only pray that in moulding Jaime, in making him everything a Lannister should be, that she might atone for her failures.

She forced herself to think of her grandfather's words, harsh and unyielding and brutal at times, but always with the interests of House Lannister at their heart.

 _They will all hear Jaime roar_ she swore to herself.  _Winter will not come, not for him._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On behalf of my fabulous new co-author, allow me to welcome you to the world of Roslin Stark, Queen in the North.

 

Roslin hates King's Landing, hates it in the way she'd hated her childhood home, for that is what it reminds her of. It's overcrowded and filled with false people with false smiles painted on their false faces the way the Twins had been. It has been over a decade since she'd wed Robb and escaped that life, but here in the hot, smelly confines of the Red Keep, those unpleasant memories come rushing back.

She is standing at the window looking out over the practice yard where her sons are playing with their cousins. Edd has grown so tall and handsome, Lady Cat tells her that he looks like Lord Ned had as a boy, only with red curls and Tully eyes. Callan is the image of her, and Hoster is his father made over. All of her sons have their father's eyes. All of Robb's sons have his eyes…  
She looks at her boys and wonders why she should feel so much anger over one child, one boy to her three. Robb swears that it had only been once, only one moment of weakness in which he had betrayed her. But she can't help but think that it would not have been once if Myrcella Lannister had not left Winterfell as abruptly as she did. She remembers those long months in which she'd watched her husband fall in love with another woman.

* * *

_Her good mother had found her crying in the sept. Robb had gone riding with Myrcella again while she had stayed behind. She'd known that it frustrated Robb that she wouldn't ride with him, but she was afraid of horses and the fact that she had never been allowed to go riding as a child ensured that she would never get over that fear; and for him to take another woman with him in her place…  
"It will get better," Cat had said. "It will. You're both young and only a year wed. You'll get to know one another and it will get better. It did for me."  
Roslin had thought that Cat couldn't truely know, because the bastard Ned Stark had brought home had not been his and the woman he was rumored to have loved was gone. She had never had to contend with a Myrcella Lannister._

* * *

Looking back, she supposed she had always known that Myrcella would bring trouble with her. When they had first heard that Myrcella was coming north to Winterfell, when they were trying to decide what to do with her, she'd had the feeling that something would go wrong. That something would spoil the tentative peace she and her husband had found.

* * *

_"Will you execute her?"  
"Gods no, why would I do that? She's a woman. She was no more than a girl when her mother and Joffrey did what they did… I can't kill her Roslin. I wouldn't be able to look myself in the eyes let alone her."  
"What will you do then?" Lady Cat had asked. "Put her on a ship to Braavos and hope for the best? She can't stay here Robb."  
Roslin had agreed with her, but after staring into the fire for a long moment Robb had looked up and said, "She will stay here for as long as she needs. We will give her food and shelter until she is ready to move on. She will not be treated as a hostage. She will be our guest. Understood?"_

* * *

She had understood. She had understood that Myrcella was a beautiful woman who had more in common with Robb than she could ever hope for. Whereas her conversations with Robb had been awkward and stilted and filled with long, uncomfortable silences; Robb's interactions with Myrcella had been free and easy, as though they were comforted by each other's prescence.  
She'd envied her that.

* * *

_She watches as her husband dances around the floor, his arms around the Lannister woman. He is laughing at something she'd said, his eyes bright and a broad grin spread across his face. He rarely laughs when he is with her. She can't figure out why, she tries so hard to be a good and dutiful wife the way her septa had taught her, to be as accommodating and pleasing as possible, but it seems as though nothing she ever does is right. The only times that he's truely seemed happy with her was when she had told him that she was with child, and when she had first placed Edd in his arms.  
She looks over at Willas Tyrell, so obviously enamored with Sansa, and wonders what it would be like to have a happy marriage; to be beautiful, witty, and confident the way Myrcella was; to be able to hold her husband's attention and have him look at her like she was the center of his world._

* * *

She is crying, tears slowly moving down her cheeks, and she starts when a hand reaches out to brush one away.  
"Jon! I'm sorry, I didn't see you."  
Her friend smiles sadly at her, "I didn't mean to startle you. Robb came and told me that you'd spoken to him."  
She tries to remain calm, to remain composed as a Queen should be, but he looks at her with eyes full of understanding and she crumples, sobbing into his arms.

* * *

_She's running through the halls of the Red Keep, tears flowing freely down her cheeks, her breath coming in gasps. She knows she must look a fright, the Queen in the North behaving in such a way, but she doesn't stop until she reaches Val's chambers. She hears the sound of deep, male laughter mingled with Val's and she knows that Jon is with her. She bursts into the room, interrupting her friends' playful banter.  
"Roslin? What ever's the matter? What's happened" Val says looking at her worriedly.  
She takes a deep breath. "Myrcella Lannister's son is Robb's child." She says, and then bursts into tears.  
She sees Jon and Val exchange glances (of course they'd known, how could they not) and then Jon is up, pulling her to sit on the bed beside his wife as Val reaches to put her arms around her.  
"How did you find out?" Val asked.  
"He was playing with the boys in the practice yard and Callan introduced me to him… I… Gods…his eyes Jon, his eyes…"_

* * *

She's always found it easier to be free with herself when she is with Jon and Val. They make her feel comfortable, safe even, like it doesn't matter what she says or how she behaves. It's a feeling she had never experienced before meeting them. Jon had reminded her of Olyvar, her dear brother who she had loved so much who had died defending Robb in one of the many battles fought to win the North, and Val had been the friend that she had always dreamed of having.  
Now, as she struggles with the feelings of hurt and betrayal the knowledge of Robb's indescretion has brought on, she lets herself relax into the arms of the closest person to a brother she has here.  
"Ten years of marriage and three sons, and still my husband doesn't love me."  
Jon looks down into her eyes, "That's not true Ros, and you know it. He loves you."  
She smiles ruefully, "Not as much as he loves her. Look me in the eyes Jon and tell me truefully, do you really think he loves me that way? The way he loves her, the way you love Val, the way Willas loves Sansa. Has he ever shown any indication of loving me that way? Our marriage has never been that way, you know that, you've seen it."  
Jon's grey eyes studied her, he had a knack for appearing to stare into a person's soul. "I think you're giving up Roslin. And I hate to see you do that. You are so much more than people give you credit for, you have so much to give. Don't give up on your marriage just yet. Don't give up on Robb."  
Roslin turned away from him to look back out the window, "Maybe I'm just tired of giving and never getting anything in return."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What with updating this, I went back over the other one-shots and things I wrote for ASOIAF, and I have to say:
> 
> There is nothing more bizarrely upsetting than being told in a review on one of your fics that your main fic (at the time) is shit.
> 
> This happened – in a review on Sunlight on Fresh Snow, the reviewer said that Acts of Treason was shit and unbelievable. It was very distressing.
> 
> Anyways: Meet Jaime Lannister 2.0, everyone, and enjoy.

Even at nine – near ten – years of age, Jaime Marbrand is no fool.

He knows, for example, that Mother's scars were caused by Martells and Targaryens, even if a Dayne and a Dothraki wielded the sword and whip that broke her face, and he will never trust anyone bearing any of those names.

He knows, for example, that Mother and Father did not love each other as other mothers and fathers did for a very long while, but they do now, and that Father would gladly go to war to protect Mother if only she would let him.

He knows, for example, that Father is not really his father, and that the King in the North's sons and nephews and cousins all have eyes the same colour blue as Jaime's, just like Lord Rickon, Mother's friend, does.

* * *

When Uncle Tyrion explains to Jaime what it will mean to be his heir, that Jaime will have to move to Casterly Rock with Mother and Father and learn to be a lord and take the name of Lannister, Jaime looks at Mother. She seems afraid, of what he does not know, but also hopeful.

She looks the way she did when the letter from King Aegon arrived for them in Braavos, and coming home to Westeros made her happy, so Jaime takes a gamble and agrees to be Uncle Tyrion's heir because he hopes that going to Casterly Rock will make Mother happy.

* * *

Jaime knows that the Queen in the North, Queen Roslin, hates him, and he wishes he were brave enough to tell her that it is not his fault that Father is not his father. He knows that his namesake, his grandfather, would be bold enough to say so – but Jaime is not the Kingslayer, and even though both Mother and Father and now even Uncle Tyrion say that that is a blessing, Jaime wishes he was as brave as the golden knight in all their stories.

He likes Edd and Callan and even little Hoster, who is barely more than a baby. He likes the Tyrells, too, Loras and Brandon, and Edmyn Tully is the funniest boy Jaime has ever met. None of them seem to notice that his eyes are the same colour as theirs, and if they do – he thinks that Brandon Tyrell does – they do not seem to mind.

Jaime always envied the other boys in Braavos for having brothers, and even though Mother explained to him one day that she is sorry that she cannot give him brothers or sisters (he would not mind a sister, because he likes the way Mother smiles when she talks about his Uncle Tommen and thinks that he should like to make someone smile like that), he would have liked a brother of his own. He knows – although he cannot say it, and he thinks it would make Mother sad if he did – that Edd and Callan and Hoster are his brothers, but it is not right  _because_ he cannot say it, and he wishes more than anything that Uncle Tyrion had a son or daughter of his own who Jaime might  _claim._

* * *

He hears the whispers about the Stark bastard playing at being a lord, and that Stark bastards always seem to come good, and he wonders what it means, if the people are talking about Prince Jon, because he has heard people call Prince Jon the Black Prince but also the Bastard Prince and he knows that Prince Jon was raised as a Stark, or very nearly so, so Jaime decides to go to Lord Rickon, because Lord Rickon is a Stark but he is also Mother's friend, and Mother has so few friends that Jaime knows he must be able to trust Lord Rickon.

"What precisely did they say, lad?" Lord Rickon asks, lifting Jaime up onto the deep windowsill in the library – there never seems to be anyone in the library, which Jaime thinks a great shame because he loves books almost as much as Uncle Tyrion and there are many wonderful books in the library of the Red Keep, almost as many as he saw the day he managed to sneak into the Sealord's Palace by climbing the walls – and setting his hands at Jaime's sides. "Tell me as close as you remember."

"They said that there was another Stark bastard about," Jaime says, screwing up his face as he tries to remember perfectly. "And that the Stark bastards always seemed to have someone to claim them for trueborn. What's a bastard, Lord Rickon?"

Lord Rickon explains what a bastard is, and makes Jaime swear not to tell Mother what he overheard.

He does not, however, make Jaime swear not to tell Uncle Tyrion and Father. Jaime understands what the whispers mean now, and the words they used about Mother,  _his mother,_ the best, kindest, most beautiful woman in the whole world, make him so angry that he wishes once more that he was as tall and brave and strong as his grandfather.

* * *

Jaime knows that Father hates how upset Mother has been since King Robb spoke to her in the halls, and Jaime hates it too. He hates anything that upsets Mother, but it seems to him that nothing in all of Westeros could ever upset her as much as King Robb does, not even the whispers about how ugly she is (a lie) and what a whore she is (another lie).

"Our mother says horrible things about yours," Edd confides in the gardens one morning, looking ashamed – he looks very like Prince Jon, even though his hair is red and his eyes are the same blue as Jaime's. "I do not like it when she does. She says all sorts of things about how Lady Marbrand behaved when she stayed at Winterfell after the war."

"Her Grace can say as she pleases," Jaime huffs, as diplomatically as he can manage – Uncle Tyrion warned him that this may happen, and he is glad of his uncle's advice. "Her Grace is a Queen, and Mother is only a lady without any lands."

"Mother shouldn't say such things," Edd insists. "I told her so, you know, and she got very angry with me. I don't understand why."

Jaime likes Edd, but sometimes the heir to the North can be very stupid indeed – Uncle Tyrion made him promise not to tell people when they are being stupid, though, so Jaime says nothing about why Queen Roslin hates him and Mother so much.

* * *

The day before they are due to leave for Casterly Rock, Jaime meets Robb Stark for the first time.

He  _hates_ the man who sired him.

King Robb – they called him the Young Wolf once, Uncle Tyrion has been telling Jaime all about King Robb and Lords Tyrell and Tully and Arryn and Princess Arianne and Lady Greyjoy – smiles and says all sorts of nice things, but Jaime cannot see beyond the man who made Mother weep, who is the cause of all the terrible whispers about Mother even though he is more to blame than she is.

"Excuse me please Your Grace," he says politely when King Robb crouches before him. "But I must go – Father told me not to be long."

He scurries away as fast as he can, but he can feel Robb Stark's eyes on his back until he turns the corner, and he  _hates hates hates_ the King in the North.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written between our tumblr submit boxes. Um.

Jaime meets her when he is five. He had escaped from his mother and gone down to the docks. Rolf, the boy who lives next door has talked about the docks before (he is eight and his father is a sailor) and Jaime was determined to go see them.

He is fascinated. Crowds of people swarming like bees, fish wives haggling with their customers, sailor loading and unloading ships, merchants and beggars, rich and poor… he even sees some Dothraki horse lords among the crowd.

But when a dirty, smelly old man grabs him from behind, puts a knife to his throat and drags him into an ally, he realizes why Mother had not wanted him to go to the docks.

The old man is sneering down at him when a figure leaps from the shadows and pounces on him like a cat. There is a brief struggle, and then the man falls to the ground.

The figure steps out of the shadows, and Jaime sees a tall, slender woman with a long face, short dark brown hair that just reaches her shoulders, and clear eyes that are the color of gray steel.

The woman kneels down in front of him, "And what is a sweet boy like you doing down by the docks all alone? Where's your mother?"

He tells her about his escape, how he'd planned to sneak away as Mother was doing the washing. She smiles at him then, but it doesn't quite chase away the worry in her eyes.

"Well, she must be very worried about you. We'd better take you home."

He tells her his name, where he lives, who his parents are, and on the way home he tells her every interesting thing about his five years of life. And she listens. Every now and then she will give him a slight smile, but mostly she just watches him out of the corner of her eye.

When they reach the row of houses where he lives, she stops. "Aren't you coming?" he asks. "I want to introduce you to my mother!"

Once again, she kneels in front of him. "Have you ever had a secret friend before Jaime? A friend who no one but you knew about?" He shakes his head no.

"I would like to be your secret friend Jaime. Only you, me, and the Bull will know about it."

"Who's the Bull?" he asks.

"You'll meet him, I'll introduce you." She winks at him and then stands. "Now go on, your mother must be worried."

He turns to go and the stops. When he turns back around, she is already walking away.  
"Wait!" he calls. She looks back at him.

"I don't know your name," he says.

She grins.

"I'm Cat," she says. "Cat of the Canals."

* * *

She can hardly look around without Jaime slipping away, and it drives both her and Addam to distraction.

He never comes home with so much as a bump or a graze, of course, and although there's sometimes soot on his clothes for some reason, he's generally clean and even  _well fed_ when he wanders through the little gate that leads into the back yard from the street.

She wonders where he disappears to, worries for him, because although he's already showing prodigious talent with a blade and is faster and taller and stronger than most of the boys even two or three years older than him, he is still her baby, her golden boy, and the thought of anything happening to him terrifies her more than anything at all.

* * *

He's really excited, hopping from one foot to the other as Cat leads him into the smithy.

He sees a man, tall and broad shouldered, standing at the forge, his back to Jaime as he swings his hammer. Jaime thinks that he must be a very dangerous man to cross, he is so much bigger than Father, and obviously very strong.

Cat gets the Bull's attention and he sets aside his work and turns to look at Jaime. There is something in his eyes when he looks at him, a wariness that Jaime realizes he'd seen before, in Cat's eyes when he first met her.

"Jaime, this is the Bull. Bull, this is the boy I told you about," Cat says and then turns to tend to the fire.

"Ah, the boy who thought it'd be an adventure to run off on his own and scare his Mum aye?" the Bull says as he looks at him with stern blue eyes.

"I didn't mean to scare her…" Jaime says uncomfortably.

"No, but you did didn't you? No matter, you've learned your lesson. If you want somewhere to go lad, you come here. I could always use an extra pair of hands."

And so begins Jaime's apprenticeship to the Bull.

* * *

There are two new members of the household standing in the yard with the rest when they arrive at Casterly Rock. Old Maester Creylen, doubled over with pains by now, points them out with the rest, and Myrcella's heart stops when she sees the man who might be the man she called Father come again.

"Who is the woman with him?" she asks, frowning as she tries to decide where the woman looks so familiar from.

"Nan, her name is," Creylen says with a shrug. "They came with a letter from Prince Jon asking that we take them in."

* * *

Gendry feels her eyes on him all the time, his sister who isn't his sister. He has a sister, and sometimes he wonders where Bella is now.

But Myrcella looks at him as though he is a ghost, as though she wants to ask him something but can't. He can understand that. He has questions of his own. Like, was Robert Baratheon a good father to her, or did he treat his 'trueborn' children with the same indifference that his bastards received.

Addam knows that it is difficult for Myrcella to see that man, the one who has the Baratheon look, because had she looked like him she would never have been scarred and shamed and broken as she was.

Jaime Lannister - the first Jaime, the Kingslayer - was Addam's best friend, but Myrcella is Addam's wife and he hates Jaime and that bitch Cersei for what they caused when they lay together.

And yet, how can he hate them when he would never have known what it is to wake up in the morning with his limbs tangled up with hers and her golden curls wrapped around him, if Jaime and Cersei had never been selfish enough to create such a beautiful creature. He would never have been able to call Myrcella his own if she had been Robert's child instead of Jaime's

No, he knew Cersei well enough to know that her daughter would always have been meant for greater things - her fury when the Imp sent Myrcella to Dorne had been phenomenal, after all, and so what hope would a lord of the Westerlands literally old enough to be her father have with the Princess?

Of course, there's also the fact that had Myrcella not come through the trials she has, she would be a different person, and it is this Myrcella that he loves, not some black-haired stranger who never was.

* * *

"I don't think Nan is your real name, and I don't think Cat is your name either. Who are you really?"

She bends down in front of him so that their eyes are level.

"Why Jaime, I'm your friend aren't I?"

He moves her hand off of his shoulder.

"Friends don't keep secrets from friends," he says stoutly.

"Cat" looks at him for a moment, then says, "If a friend tells a friend her true name, will that friend keep it a secret?"

He nods his head, and then she leans forward and whispers a name in his ear.

He looks at her curiously, head tilted to the side just the way Bran used when he was thinking hard on something, and then he smiles just like Jon when she'd share a secret with him.

"I'll keep your secret if you keep mine," he says decisively after a moment, folding his arms and waiting for her agreement.

She nods. He beckons.

Her heart breaks for the boy who wishes for no father but the one he has, even as her heart breaks for her brother who would love to know all his sons.

* * *

He's chasing Arya around the forge when Myrcella comes. They both freeze the moment Lady Marbrand walks through the door. He feels tense, and he only get's more anxious when Arya makes some awkward statement about how she needs to go finish the laundry (Traitor, when have you ever done laundry) and scoots out the door.

Leaving him alone, with Myrcella.

She cannot speak. She can only look at him, feeling a fool and a coward both for being here and yet not doing anything further.

"Milady?" he offers, looking as confused and frightened as she is herself.

"Do you have… Are there more of you? More of my father- King Robert's bastards, aside from yourself and Mya and Edric?"

He's not sure what she wants. The last time one of Cersei Lannister's children was looking for his father's bastards, children were murdered. But Myrcella isn't Joffrey, he's sure of that.

Arya seems to have some level of respect for her, though, and he's learned to trust her judgement.

"I met a sister of mine once. Bella. She lived in a brothel near the Stoney Sept. We didn't know we were brother and sister at the time, she tried to…I realized the similarities later."

Myrcella flinches at the disgust in his face at the memory of his sister, an unknowing brothel girl, trying to lie with him, and wonders what he would say if she asked him his opinion of her mother and Jaime.

"I suppose I cannot speak of bastards," she says, shaking her sheepishly and feeling silly. "Were it not for my uncle… Well."

* * *

She looks just like Jon Targaryen.

Myrcella could kick herself for not realising sooner, for not remembering those angry grey eyes in that long face, but now that she  _does_ remember she knows that there's only one woman in Westeros who could possibly look like Jon bloody Targaryen.

She finds Nan-Arya, Arya Stark, Myrcella finds her leaning against the railings around the practice yard, watching Jaime and a Westerling boy that Tyrion saw fit to ward at the Rock spar.

"We all thought you were dead," she says without preamble, standing a yard or two away and hugging her arms around herself, wondering if Arya will react as Jon did or as Sansa did - Jon, who was so forgiving, who petted Jaime's hair and smiled, or Sansa, who stayed close to Roslin and couldn't meet Myrcella's eyes.

"Jon knew I wasn't," Arya says with a shrug. "He asked me to keep an eye on you. Jaime is a good boy."

"The best," Myrcella agrees. "The very best."

"I'm not here as a Stark," Arya says, eyes sliding along the yard to the armoury and beyond it to the forge. "Arya Stark would be expected to behave in a certain way, and that does not suit me."

Myrcella nods, still uncertain, but Arya smiles slightly.

"He has so little family, Myrcella," she says softly. "And he is happy with how things are here."

* * *

They make a strange bunch, Jaime thinks.

There is Mother and Father, and there is Cat and Bull (whose names are Arya and Gendry, he's allowed know that now because Mother knows), and there is Uncle Tyrion in King's Landing.

Jaime still sometimes wishes he had a little brother, or a brother at all, but Cat calls for him when she has her baby and whispers into his ear that his little cousin will need someone to look after him, and Jaime decides that a cousin is enough to be getting along with.


End file.
